Game completed: Hogwarts Legacy

Those are basically my feelings right now. But I've done everything the game offers and now I either have to wait for new content or until enough time has passed that I'll feel good about playing it again.

The first part of this post will be general stuff. I'll warn before we go into story and spoilers. 

Before I even got the game I made sure to connect my Wizarding World account with my Warner Bros account so I could have my official House and my actual wand in the game. Connecting those two also provides a bit of extra cosmetic goodies in the game :) Of course I also preordered the Deluxe edition so I could get all those extra goodies and the 72 hours of early access. 

When I first booted up the game it preset everything at Medium settings. I changed them to High and got started. Didn't have any stuttering or fps drops or graphic bugs or glitches throughout until they dropped the first patch and then I started getting stuttering the first few seconds whenever I started the game... Thanks... 

The world is huge with lots to explore and throughout there is a slightly changed version of the soundtrack from the movies and it just keeps hitting me deep in my fangirl heart. It's been a long time since I was this invested in a game and it managed to meet my every expectation and it completely deserved the hype. 

The combat is fast-paced, fun and instinctive/reactive and I enjoyed it way more than I usually enjoy combat in games.

I managed to get all of the achievements for the game. Most of them were either story based or based on collectables so most of them were easy to get if you really went and did everything the game had to offer. Two of them were combat based, but neither of them were too difficult to achieve even for a filthy casual like me :) The last three requires you to replay the intro up until level 9-10 ish, because those three are House-specific. 

From this point on there will be spoilers! Major ones! Don't say I didn't warn you!

I've played the intro four times by now, but the action-y almost movie-like story sequences of it never get boring. It definitely starts with a bang. Dragon attack, ancient magic shenanigans, pensieves... You name it, they got it. When the camera first panned over Hogwarts with the game version of Hedwig's Theme I started crying. I've cried a few times during the course of this game. 

I loved going to classes and I wish they'd included more of them. Especially Potions classes. I need more Professor Sharp in my life. And Professor Garlick. Actually, Professor Hecat is cool too. Just give me more classes. My favourite class is probably the first Defence Against the Dark Arts when I got to beat Sebastian's ass. I love Sebastian. And his quest to save his sister and subsequent accidental delve into the Dark Arts breaks my heart but it makes so much sense. I think I actually audibly gasped when he used the Killing Curse on his uncle. 

Natty started out as the least interesting character you build a friendship with, but the end of her questline had me really fricking invested and the cutscene at the very end which shows her facing off against a boggart that takes the shape of her dead father just had me in tears and I was so proud of her. 

Poppy was so sweet. So fitting that her name is Sweeting. Her story didn't pull me in as much as Natty and Sebastian, but damn if it wasn't amazing to fight alongside centaurs and meet hippogriffs and find snidgets ♥ 

The quest leading up to finding Jackdaw's rest was different depending on which House you were in, which is why there were separate achievements for it, I assume. For Ravenclaw the quest involved helping Ollivander find a stolen family heirloom wand of unusual make and core. For Gryffindore the quest involved Nearly-Headless Nick and going into the Hogwarts kitchen in an attempt to help Nick join the Headless Hunt. For Hufflepuff the quest was to solve a really old murder mystery and it brought us straight to Azkaban! o_o I wasn't expecting to go there in this game... For Slytherin the quest involves the Headmaster's personal house-elf Scrope and going into Apollonia Black's personal and hidden cavern by the Black Lake. All in all very different quests, but doing all of them served to create a very complete portrait of who Richard Jackdaw was. 

The main quest really had its moments too. San Bakar's trial was the most memorable and amazing. Getting to tame and ride a huge graphorn was just *_* And using polyjuice potion to transform into Phineas Nigellus Black for one single quest to get inside his office was so much fun and I was laughing the whole time.

I wish there had been some kind of interaction with Morganach as well as the Keepers, but no such luck. The end of Rookwood was disappointing, but the final fight against Ranrok really made up for it. I loved seeing all the professors come together and help with the battle underneath Hogwarts. 

This is my Game of the Year. Not even a challenge.

Harry Potter on HBO

So since HBO got the rights for all the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies they've started to add a bunch of new Harry Potter related content, and I took today to watch through all of it :)

Harry Potter: The Reunion Return to Hogwarts 20th Anniversary. Ofc I watched this when it was brand new, back on January 2nd. But after having watched it and spent almost 2 hours being teary-eyed I still felt like I had to watch it again. So today I re-watched the whole thing and just like anything Harry Potter it filled me with such a warm cosy feeling. Harry Potter has been part of my life since I was nine years old and it still remains a big part to this day and I really deeply feel all those feelings the cast talked about. I remember back in 2000 when they were doing the casting for the first Potter movie and I was following it more closely than I've ever followed the casting for anything else. I remember searching online for rumours for the fifth, sixth and seventh books (with the msn search engine because Google was barely a thing back then) years before they came out. In the Reunion Robbie Coltrane talks about the massive lines of kids who'd queue for blocks to get the new book on the midnight release. I only got to do that once, for the last book when I was 16, and I had finished the book by the next day even though I tried to go slowly. I've read those books more times than any other books. I've watched those movies more times than I've watched any other movies. Harry Potter is more a part of me than any other series or franchise ever will be. I can't find the words to convey what this franchise means to me, but the actors in the Reunion did a pretty good job trying to convey the special feeling that is Harry Potter. Having been in it from the very beginning, having grown up with it... I wouldn't trade it for anything. The quote from JK Rowling on the premiere of Deathly Hallows part 2 in London still makes me very emotional to this day: "Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home." And that's what this Reunion is all about. Aside from me wishing they'd include more of the actors, this was absolutely perfect. 

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses. I had heard a lot about this and thought it seemed foolish. But I decided to watch it anyway. It was kind of entertaining at times, although mostly cringe, and the majority of the questions were too easy. The only questions I struggled with where the ones that asked for specific details in movie scenes, because I always look at the whole and not the details. Watching all four episodes I also realized that I'm way more confident in the first four books/movies than I am in the later ones. I haven't watched OotP, HBP and DH1 as much as I have the other films and OotP is probably the book I've read the least amount of times, so that makes sense. It kind of bothers me that the show's host, Helen Mirren, proudly says they have contestants from all over the world and then it turns out that every single one on the teams is either American or living in the US, and only two of those 12 people on the teams were originally from other countries but living in the US. Not very "all over the world", is it? It was very cringe to watch the players come up with an argument or explanation for how they arrived at their answers, when most of them probably just did like me and looked at the question and thought "That one." This entire season I was sat either nodding at the screen when both me and them got a question right, sighing in exasperation when they got a (to me) obvious question wrong, or frowning very hard trying to come up with the right answer when it was one of the more intricate movie questions. As cringe as this was, and as ridiculous it sometimes seemed, I had a pretty good time watching it. I may have been talking to the screen a lot.

Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History. Every Harry Potter fan knows Stephen Fry as the guy who narrated the British audiobooks. In this kind of documentary he explores the myths behind some of the magical creatures that show up in Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts. I studied these old legends a lot when I was a teenager and had the book called The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter. This book is over 20 years old now but it taught me all the basics. This documentary was very interesting and also very cosy. It poses questions around storytelling and why humans tell stories and where do these magical creatures actually come from? He presents different theories, but of course nobody knows for sure. What I do agree with Stephen Fry and J.K. Rowling on is that it's incredibly fascinating that people all over the world share a lot of similar myths and similar magical creatures, no matter how different the cultures. We'll probably never know when or why it started, but it's interesting to think about. I really enjoyed this trip into the land of legends and shared history. 

Fantastic Friends. This is only related to Harry Potter in the very loosest sense, but since a lot of the actors from Harry Potter shows up in this, it's been on the radar for a lot of fan groups. So this is a show where James and Oliver Phelps (better known as the Weasley twins) take friends on trips around the globe. This was a very wholesome show to watch. My favourite episode was probably the one on Iceland with Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), but the one in Dubai with Luke Youngblood (Lee Jordan) was a lot of fun too. More than anything this show was a great way to get to know the twins as individuals and not as a set. Looking forward to more of this show because it was a lot of fun. 

I spent the whole day today watching Potter stuff, starting around 8.30am and finishing around 11.30pm, but it was so worth it xD

Happy Back to Hogwarts day!

So it's September 1st and that means two things: 1). That summer is officially over, and 2). It's Back to Hogwarts day. 

This year it's 20 years since the first movie released and I can't believe it. I still remember going online and reading up on all the rumours of who was getting cast as which character and where they were going to film etc. It was insanely big already back then. Before the movies. Like imagine how big it got after the movies and then imagine that it was already huge before that. It's crazy. 

Unfortunately I don't remember when and where I watched the first movie. If it was at the cinema or on VHS at home. I think I saw it at the cinema and later I bought the dubbed version of the movie so my sister could watch it with me (back when the VHS tapes usually only had one version on each tape). Except she didn't care much xD 

I still remember the pre-movies Harry Potter merch we had and I kind of wish we didn't have to lose that in favour of WB merch. The original merch was quirky and magical and extremely book-literal. Or I may just be a Ravenclaw being salty over the fact that all my merch has the wrong animal on it.

But I've done so much in the past 20+ years of being a Potterhead, and while I'm not obsessing (as much) anymore it's still deeply and intricately a part of me ♥ I've even read the first book in Japanese ^^;

• I've been to Platform 9 3/4 in London twice. (Post and post)
• I've been to the Studio Tour. (Post and picture post)
• I've been to The Exhibition. (Post)
• I've gone to two conventions. (Post and post)
• I've been to the Harry Potter part of the Guiness World Records museum in Copenhagen. (Post)
• I saw the last movie at the cinema twice. (Post and post)
• I've played the Harry Potter games (Post and post)
• I loved the Cursed Child. (Post)
• Fantastic Beasts is just an excuse to dress up and obsess (Post)
• I own the Wizards Collection. (Post)
• I have a lot of stuff (more now). (Post)
• Picture bomb.

Apart from all of that I also distinctly remember two other Harry Potter related events in my life. One was in 2002 when I celebrated my 12th birthday by inviting a few friends and then my parents took us all to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at the cinema. A movie I subsequently watched so much that my VHS tape became all scratchy and jumpy. And I remember queueing for the midnight release of the Deathly Hallows in 2007. It was the first time I had been able to do that and it was absolutely amazing.

Over 20 years of Harry Potter in my life and here's to 20 more!

The Harry Potter mobile games

Wizards Unite: I got this when it released. I loved Pokémon Go and this is the same concept. I was very excited for Pokémon Go when that released but I was doubtful whether the same thing would work in the wizarding world. Wizards Unite has a sort of questline where you work for the Ministry and your job is to catch magic anomalies and return them to their rightful place. It was fun for a short while but soon felt like you were collecting stickers and not much else. I liked that there was a questline, I'm all about quests in any game I play, but fetch quests become boring and grindy in pretty much any game and this was just that. . I got to around level 12 before I stopped. In comparison I played Pokémon Go for more than a year.

Hogwarts Mystery: I started playing this game this past Sunday and it's really a lot of fun! The story is a lot more engaging than in Wizards Unite, and the gameplay is a lot more varied and fun. The only negative feedback I have is the same as what everyone else is saying: you run out of energy too quickly and then you either have to wait hours for your energy to recharge completely or pay real money to buy more in-game currency to buy energy with. And you need energy to be able to complete classes, and you need to get the House points from doing the classes to get the items needed to complete sidequests... It all goes in circles. I'm almost done with Year 1 at the time of writing this and so I have a whole lot more gameplay to do, but I'm actually looking forward to it! Let's see what this game has to offer.

The Harry Potter love is back!

The past week (+ a few days) have been very Harry Potter-centered for me. It started on Sunday 13th of November when I bought the special edition magazine for Fantastic Beasts. It's published by Aftonbladet which is an evening paper and half of their articles feel like "I'm 16 years old and I'm studying high school journalism". But generally I liked reading the magazine. Some of the things felt weird because I haven't dealt with a Swedish translation of anything Harry Potter related for over 10 years. Of course I discovered faults in the text. The whole "Things you didn't know about Harry Potter" failed to provide things I didn't know, as per usual. I've been doing this since 1999. Try giving me some material I haven't already found! ;) But towards the end, came most things that bothered me. First was the whole discussion why Rowling didn't out Dumbledore in the books. Because she wrote the story almost 20 years ago! If she had had an openly gay character in a childrens book during the 90s all hell would've broken loose. It wouldn't have become as popular as it is today, even more publishers wouldn't have wanted to touch it and if they did it would probably be banned in a whole lot of places. Society's view of inclusion of homosexuals have changed a lot in the last 20 years. So that's why. Now deal with it. The second part was basically dealing with why there weren't more muggle technology interested wizards in Harry Potter. Mostly because, as Rowling has explained on Twitter, electronics surrounded by magic tend to form their own mind. Like the Weasleys's Ford Anglia. Basically: technology + magic = AI. And then the girl writing the article went on about internet and mobiles, and I'm just sighing. The books take place in 1991-1998. Internet wasn't even half as mainstream as it is today back then, and not everybody had mobile phones. The fact that Dudley has a computer in 1991 is kind of amazing. Home computers weren't all that common back in the early 90s. Do you see how this whole technology discussion is moot? So some of the articles made me exasperated, which happens a lot lately because people tend to forget that times change and 20 years back the world was a very different place. But mostly the magazine was either very interesting or made me smile in all the right places, and left a huge feeling of nostalgia. Which I filled by using my Harry Potter colouring books ^^;

Then on the 18th we went to see Fantastic Beasts :D I dressed up ofc, with a Ravenclaw t-shirt and my Ravenclaw diadem, and my wand in my boot. The movie was amazing! I was originally quite sceptical to both Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts. But Cursed Child was really good and after I saw the trailer of Fantastic Beasts where they used a snippet of Hedwig's Theme I became a lot more excited for it. In the end I looked forward to Fantastic Beasts a lot more than I did the other Potter movies. Mainly because the Potter movies were based on the books and there were always so many things changed or wrong that it bugged me. With Fantastic Beasts I had nothing to compare to, and it was amazing! Absolutely wonderful! We're thinking of seeing it again :P

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - no spoilers

Wow. Where to even begin?

When the play was announced I wasn't especially excited, and I haven't been very into Fantastic Beasts either. Somehow I felt like my Harry Potter affection and obsession was dying. Then came the announcement that they would be releasing the script as a book. A new book?! I was suddenly over the moon with anticipation. I knew it was a script. I knew she hadn't written it completely on her own. But nevertheless it was a new Harry Potter book (not a novel, but a book even so) 8 years after book 7 was released.

When I realised I wouldn't be able to be at the midnight release due to work I was very disappointed. I was at the midnight release of Deathly Hallows in 2007, and then at the midnight premiere of Deathly Hallows part 2 in 2011. I really wanted to be there for the midnight release of Cursed Child. But I had to resign myself to not being able to go there and instead I pre-ordered the book at the end of May.

On the 29th I got an e-mail telling me that my order had shipped. My book was officially on its way. On the 31st I was seated in the lunch room at work scrolling through my Facebook wall looking at all the updates and pictures from people I know who had been at the midnight release. And I was so jealous that they already had the book and already had started reading. On August 1st, yesterday, at work I got a text that my order had been delivered to my local post office and I could go pick it up. Said and done! After work I picked it up and when I came home I immediately started reading despite being very, very tired after getting up 4am in the morning for two days in a row.

The fact that it was a script didn't bother me. Of course the descriptions sometimes were a little poorer than I would've liked, but that's what you can expect from a script that's mostly dialogue and just some annotations to how the stage shifts and changes between each scene. When I studied French my favourite book that we read was Waiting for Godot, and that was also in script format. So I knew from before-hand that a script didn't bother my reading.

I only read the first act yesterday and then stopped because I wanted it to last as long as possible. I spent the rest of the evening just looking at my new book and holding it. Today I started reading as soon as I got out of bed and finished it before 3pm.

I want to go into extensive detail over the story, because I really liked it and I want to emphasize that in a world where the haters always are the loudest. But let me give you hints without really spoiling the story. It includes redemption. It includes the partial return of a character previously only seen in one single book. It includes a lot of nostalgia for what happened in the original seven books. It includes the exploration to a lot of 'what if?'s, and it includes a plot-twist that I didn't expect and that everyone is discussing loudly and fervently. I liked the plot-twist because it turned one of my old headcanons into canon. You do what you will with this information.

I know Rowling didn't write it alone, but I could still see her hand in it. And just like a good book should, this one has made me laugh out loud and giggle, it has made my heart race, and it has made me cry. Towards the end I couldn't help crying at a scene, and then I couldn't stop crying as I continued reading. And as I read the last page I cried even more. It felt like finishing the last book in 2007 and realising with some sort of horribly empty finality that there was nothing more. The movies don't really count in the same way, and now it was over. Completely over. Even more so now. In 2007 Rowling wasn't opposed to revisiting Harry's story at a later time. This time, though, she has expressed that she's done with Harry's story. There will be no more. No more. And the thought that it was truly over had me crying for a good fifteen minutes, and it still makes me teary.

I thought my obsession had died, but it was merely sleeping...

Harry Potter day today :) Have a quiz

Celebrating the Harry Potter day with a quiz I found ages ago :D

1. What house will you be in?
Ravenclaw

2. If the sorting hat was on you and it said you'd be great in a house you didn't consider before, will you follow his advice or choose what house you want?
At the age of 11 I was convinced I was a Ravenclaw. If the hat told me otherwise I'd still say I wanted to be in Ravenclaw. 

3. What kind of animal would you bring to school?
Do I have to bring one? I don't like cats. I don't like birds. And I'm not really a fan of amphibians either. 

4. If you were in class, where would you normally sit?
First row in the middle, or second row to the side, preferably next to the wall. Being next to a window gets uncomfortably hot when the sun's up. 

5. What do you think you'll be doing right now?
Probably studying somewhere or hanging out with friends. 

6. What's the core of your wand?
Unicorn hair, according to Pottermore. 

7. Do you think you'll be part of the quidditch team?
No. I'm crap at any and all physical activities. 

8. Will you be part of any organization?
Possibly. I was in several when I was younger, but I quit them all once I was a teen. 

9. Will you go home during holidays?
Yes.

10. Do you think you'll have friends from other houses?
I'd like to think so, yes. 

11. What will you pack for school?
Books and notebooks. Lots of both. Also muggle pens. I've tried writing casually with ink. It's a bother. 

12. How about when going home for holidays, what will you bring home?
School books, and magical items and sweets. 

13. Would you consider studying in another wizarding school?
Considering what we know about the schools now, and answering this question as if I'm British and Hogwarts was my actual school. I'd still say maybe I'd try an exchange year at Mahotokoro in Japan. That would be cool.

14. Do you think you'll be a prefect or head girl/boy?
I'd prefer to be neither. I'd probably be nominated though. I was good in school. But I hate responsibility and I don't like being the boss of crowds. 

15. Are you going to be a pure-blood or half-blood or muggle-born?
Half-blood or muggle-born. 

16. Will you be related to any wizarding family?
If I'm half-blood, well duh.

17. Will you be a student who gets into trouble a lot?
Not to begin with. Poddibly during my last two or three years. 

18. Do you think you'll get a lot of detention? For what reason/s?
The only reasons I could think of would be skipping class and roaming around the school during night. I don't think I'd do it a lot, though. 

19. On hogsmeade visits, what shops will you go to?
Honeydukes. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of bookshop in Hogsmeade that Harry didn't notice because he's dense. So I'd probably hang out there a lot. 

20. Will you be supportive of your house's quidditch team?
Probably. On Hermione's level. 

21. Will you read Hogwarts:A History?
Of course!

22. Do you think you'll get a lot of letters from home? How frequent do you think you'll get them?
Yes. When I was in Tokyo for 4 months my parents called me on Skype at least once every week. And I was 19 then. Imagine me being away for months at 11. I'd get letters back as soon as I'd written a reply :P

23. Will you subscribe to the daily prophet or the quibbler or other wizarding world media? 
Nothing at 11. Maybe at 16 or something I'd subscribe to The Daily Prophet. Never liked magazines. 

24. Which part of the castle will be your favorite?
The library. 

25. When sleeping in your dormitory, will your four-poster bed's curtains be drawn or closed?
Closed. Privacy, please!

26. If the team your house played against wins, do you think you'll be bitter towards the other team after the game?
No. Sports aren't important enough to me :P I may be a little sad that we lost, but not bitter. 

27. Do you think you'll be a fan of wizard music?
Yes. 

28. Will you be curious enough to try and explore the whole castle, even if you know you can get in trouble for visiting some parts of it?
Yes.

29. How frequent will your visits to the library be?
Possibly daily. 

30. If someone was to form an organization similar to dumbledore's army, will you join?
Yes. 

31. If you were to get detention, what task would you prefer? Would you want to scrub cauldrons or clean trophies or sort through unlabeled books or…?
Did you say books? Yes. That. 

32. On your o.w.l.s, what subject/s will you get an O in? Which ones do you think you’ll get a T on?
Answering realistically; seeing how I like to read I'd probably manage an O in History of Magic, despite Binns' lousy teaching. I think I'd be a decent student in most areas though. I never failed anything in muggle school :P 

33. How about in your n.e.w.t.s?
Same. 

34. If you were a pure-blood, would you take interest in reading muggle literature?
Yes. I'm curious by nature. I'd like to know about that weird culture :P

35. At what time do you think you'll go to bed on weekdays?
Before midnight, but after 10pm. 

36. Would you prefer firewhiskey over butterbeer?
Never liked whiskey. 

37. What wizard snack would be your favorite? Or which one would you like to try?
Chocolate frogs and licorice wands. I'm not a fan of Jelly Beans, so I wouldn't want to try Bertie Bott's. But most other sweets described in PoA seem cool, and I'd like to try most of them :P

38. Will you collect chocolate frog cards?
Yes.

39. Will you keep track of which flavor of beans you already tried?
No. I wouldn't be in to them. 

40. What quidditch team (excluding hogwarts houses) will you support?
Quite possibly Holyhead Harpies. 

41. What classes will you take for n.e.w.t.s?
As many as possible tbh. I did try to max my points in high school. I'd probably do the same at Hogwarts, 

42. What will your boggart be?
If we're talking about the sort of fear that gives me nightmares, then something out of a Japanese horror movie, like The Grudge. If we're talking about actual life-ruining fears, then that everyone I love told me they want nothing to do with me anymore. 

43. Will you stay in the hog’s head or the three broomsticks?
Three Broomsticks. 

44. If you are of age, will you try to enter the triwizard tournament if they ever host one again?
No. I'm not suicidal. 

45. What do you think happens during graduation?
During? Probably the same as in the muggle world. You get your grades, your diploma, and you have some sort of party. 

46. Will you see the thestrals carrying the carriages?
Nope. 

47. If you were invited to join the slug club, will you accept the invitation?
Yes :P

48. Will you consider becoming a professor in hogwarts after school?
No. I don't like talking in front of people. That's kind of imperative when being a teacher. 

49. What would your patronus be?
A rabbit, most likely. 

50. What memory will you think of when making a patronus?
I don't think I'd look for a specific memory. That's hard. I think I'd more likely think of a person or a place or an item that has made me very happy, and the memories associated with this thought would come on their own. 

51. What year are you suppose to be in right now?
I'm a 7 year alumn :P

Harry Potter: The Exhibition

Today was the day! I have finally been to Harry Potter: The Exhibition at the European premiere in Norrköping here in Sweden. Since there was no photography allowed at the exhibition I will post photos from the Studio Tour in London to give you a hint :)

I was both really nervous (the trains, bus and tram had to be on time!) and extremely excited today. I felt like I was 10 years old and I couldn't sit still. I was like that yesterday too and was so fidgety that I couldn't concentrate on one thing for more than an hour before I had to do something else. The bus and train to the big train station were all on time and the train from Södertälje was on time too. The trip to Norrköping took 1½ hours and when we arrived there the tram was on time too and I found my way perfectly (very proud of myself, I have a lousy sense of direction).

We went inside and after recieving our audio guides (we both picked English over Swedish - I can't stand the Swedish names on stuff) I got in front of the green screen and had my picture taken.

Then the exhibition began. In the first room there was a lady with the Sorting Hat and three children got sorted. Two of them (of course) wanted Gryffindor and only one little guy wanted Slytherin. When no other child volunteered the lady picked one of the adults and she ended up in Hufflepuff. Then we got into the exhibition proper. Portraits, costumes, items and furniture. The first part of the first room was basically dedicated to the Gryffindor common room and the boys' dorm along with clothes and possessions of Harry and his friends. Then there were items, costumes and furniture from the Potions classroom, Divination classroom, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Herbology. I was not pleased that the form of the Boggart that they had chosen for the exhibition was the big jack-in-a-box clown :( But it was a lot of fun to pull Mandrakes, and I think I stood there pulling them up about 10 times, trying all of them a couple of rounds xD

Then there was the Quidditch room. I have never seen the Nimbuses so close up before :) I would've loved another riding-a-broom segment like they had in London, but instead you got to throw the Quaffle through hoops. There was a lot of children there throwing over and over and having real difficulties going through the hoops. When there was room for me I went up to try. I threw four times. There were three hoops and I first tried once in every hoop and then one more time in the middle furthest one. No problems whatsoever for me. Either I was tall enough or I did gain something when I played basket ball all those years ago. But holding a Quaffle was fun :)

Then there was Hagrid's Hut and the Forbidden Forest. Getting really close to Buckbeak was cool :D There was a segment where you could try to sit in Hagrid's armchair but the crowd of children around it proved too long of a waiting time so I decided to skip that one. Instead I got up and close to a baby Thestral. Cutie! :3 Being really close to the Hungarian Horntail's head was awesome too. There's so much detail on it. The audio guide said they made it life-size, which made me rather disappointed cause I thought it looked bigger than that on screen xD

Then there was the Dark Forces part. The first thing is the Angel of Death statue which looked really plastic and small compared to the one in London, but the Dementor prop had me creeped out and I stared at it for quite some time. I also liked looking at the Philosopher's Stone and Bellatrix Lestrange's dress. The glass case with the Horcruxes was also really interesting. The diadem was so beautiful! *_*

Then there was the costumes from Bill and Fleur's wedding along with Hermione's beaded bag. And then there was the Great Hall. Glass cases of all sorts of wizard snacks and sweets along with Yule Ball decorations and costumes. There were also the Triwizard Cup and the case of the Goblet of Fire and a glass case containing the three Deathly Hallows. Fawkes was there too, and the sword of Gryffindor.

And then it was over. The website said the approximate time for the exhibition was 1½ hours and thinking of how much time I spent at the Studio Tour I counted that the exhibition would take about 2 hours for me. Instead I was done in 45 minutes. I was so happy there and when Toni (who went slightly ahead of me) declared that that was the end I felt so disappointed. That's it? I loved it. It was amazing. But it was so quick. So to make up for it, I spent 15-30 minutes in the souvenir shop. I had heard about stuff from there via friends and looked for some things that I had considered buying on before-hand. In the end I didn't buy any wizard coins, which I previously thought I would, and I still didn't buy a Time Turner although I really want one. Instead I got the Official Exhibition Guide (which is how I remember all the things and what order they came in), my picture that I took in the beginning (which looked very fake compared to the London one, which looks much more real), a pink pygmy puff and a chocolate frog. The chocolate frogs from here weren't as big as the ones from London, but at least these ones weren't made of British chocolate (which isn't even half as tasty as Swedish chocolate) and the cards didn't look like in the first movie (like the ones from London) but I still liked it. I got the guitarist from The Weird Sisters :)

I really, really liked the exhibition. It was very different from the Studio Tour in London. In London I hadn't booked any audio guides since they cost extra, but here they were included. So most of the exhibition I spent with the guide pressed to my ear. Most of what they said was interesting but some things made me giggle. One thing that bothered me, however, was that it says clearly on the website and on the tickets that there's no photograpy allowed at the exhibition and still there were so many people there taking pictures. That's partly why it took forever by Hagrid's armchair, cause all the parents wanted pictures of their children in the big ass chair. If that had been at a no-photography-allowed-museum in Japan the guards would've checked our phone photo galleries and camera memories before leaving and make us delete the photos. I almost wish they would've done that here too... I also wish they could've sold Butterbeer on the outside here too. A glass of Butterbeer in this heat would've been amazing.

After the exhibition we walked back to the central station and bought drinks there. Then we went to the park close by and chilled in the shade from a big tree. That's when we heard a clock tower nearby start chiming Hedwig's Theme. It was amazing and so random that I just couldn't help smiling.

"Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."

Who would I be

Sometimes I think about who I would be if Harry Potter wasn't in my life. I know some of you might not understand and some of you will think it weird that a series of books is such a big part of my life.

But the world of Harry Potter has been so much more than books to me over those 15 years I've known Harry.

Without Harry Potter, what would've been my world of refuge when I was 9-15 and the world was so harsh? Would I have another if Hogwarts wasn't there to welcome me? Every day when I came home from school I went up to my room to find my refuge at Hogwarts. 4-6 grade I always had a blue R written on the back of my left hand. A blue R for Ravenclaw. I pretended to go to classes at Hogwarts, I had friends there, I was popular and important there. And during those years when I was 9-15, Hogwarts was more important to me than the real world. Even today, when I'm home alone and talk to myself I pretend that I'm talking to some character from Harry Potter.

There are so many people I wouldn't have met if it wasn't for Harry Potter. So many people online, whom I now consider my friends, that I would never have talked to, if it wasn't for Harry Potter. Most people meet their friends at school, through a mutual friend, or at work. I get to know people through a mutual interest.

Who would I be if Hermione Granger hadn't taught me that it was alright to be intelligent and take pride in it?
Who would I be if Hermione Granger hadn't comforted me when others bullied me for getting top grades?
Who would I be if Luna Lovegood hadn't convinced me that it's alright to believe what I want and be who I want?
Who would I be if Ginny Weasley hadn't taught me that it's alright to be a tomboy?
Who would I be if Neville Longbottom hadn't showed me that bravery is to stand up for yourself?
Who would I be if Arthur Weasley hadn't convinced me that it's not about how much money you make, it's about how much you love your work?
Who would I be if my admiration for J.K. Rowling's work hadn't inspired me to start writing myself?
Who would I be if Harry Potter hadn't been there to open the doors to the fantasy genre for me?
Who would I be if the first Harry Potter computer game hadn't open the doors to gaming for me?

Who would I be?

Harry Potter is the groundwork for everything I am. Take away Harry Potter and it all falls apart. The way things are now, I wouldn't be able to leave Harry Potter behind even if I wanted to. What I read, what I play, what I write, what I take pride in... If I disect everything about me to find out its source, more than likely that source will be that 9-year-old girl who decided she could read the first Harry Potter book herself, despite thinking it was huge with its 379 pages.

My life begun at Hogwarts.

Happy Harry Potter Day - 16 years since the Battle of Hogwarts

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts when Voldemort was finally and ultimately defeated. 2nd May 1998. And I promised myself that I'd do a remembrance post.

My very own Harry Potter journey started the next year. November 1999, when I on my 9th birthday, got the first Harry Potter book in Swedish from my parents. I still remember thinking that the book was huge and that I would never be able to read all that. But 9 year-old me devoured it and from that point on I recieved Harry Potter 2, 3 and 4 continuously every year. Either on birthdays or Christmas. I remember that every time I got a new book I had to re-read the ones before it. So when I ultimately got Goblet of Fire I had to re-read Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban before finally being able to read Goblet of Fire. This has resulted in my first four Harry Potter books in Swedish being very, very tattered.

I remember the excitement when the first movie was announced and how I and my friends finally learned how to pronounce the British names when we saw that movie. I remember the long, long wait for the fifth book and how I scoured the Internet for rumours. I remember the Harry Potter merch you could buy in ordinary supermarkets before the release of the first movie (licquorice wands, Bertie Bott's beans, chocolate frogs, cauldron cakes) and I'm disappointed that I threw those old chocolate frog cards away when I, in my late teens, had a bout of "I have to grow up now". I remember that the second movie premiered close to my 12th birthday and my parents took me and a few of my friends to see it for my birthday. I remember that I watched the second movie so many times that the video tape became jumpy. I spent all my days pretending that I was at Hogwarts. I re-made my school timetables so they had Hogwarts subjects instead, cause it made school funnier. I continued doing that 'til I was 16. I remember how much I loved the first Harry Potter computer game and how I and a friend played the Quidditch World Cup game on her computer. And the Trading Cards! And the card games!

I remember all those countless hours I used to spend at hogwarts.nu. A Swedish Harry Potter community where I had all my friends. I remember sneaking online on our old modem Internet, before broadband when the phones didn't work while online, so that I could talk with my friends. I remember that I cried when the announcement came that the site would close down in December 2006. I remember going to my first Internet meet-up in Lund in 2006. A goodbye meet-up.

I remember the Barry Trotter parodies and the very first toy wands and the earliest Harry Potter trivia books. I remember the agonising wait for the fifth book to be released in Swedish. The Swedish version had just over 1000 pages and I read it in two days. Couldn't put it down. The sixth book was the first I read in English and I bought it during my first trip to England. I read it by myself long into the night and cried my eyes out when my hero, Dumbledore, died. I had to re-read the paragraph where he died 3-4 times before I realised that Rowling wasn't joking and that it had actually happened. I was sad for days because of that. Then I spent 2 years wondering how in the world she'd manage a book without Dumbledore in it.

I was queueing in Malmö for the midnight release of the seventh and final book. I wanted to read it slowly to savour the last book and not quite letting it end, but I couldn't and had finished it the next day. So many tears because of that book. All the deaths and the realisation that it's over. I also felt relieved because I had worried about Dumbledore not being in it, but instead the entire book was about Dumbledore and no matter what was revealed about him in Deathly Hallows, it couldn't make me love him less. About the same time I discovered Wizard Rock in Harry and the Potters.

But it wasn't over. In early 2011 I discovered Mugglarportalen, which became a substitution for hogwarts.nu. Summer 2011 was the premiere of the final movie and I was there for the midnight premiere and also the premiere for Pottermore where I signed up for the beta. In 2012 I went to another Internet meet-up along with a Potter party, in 2013 I went to London and The Making of Harry Potter, 2 ½ months ago I was at Amortentia, and this summer I have planned on going to Harry Potter: The Exhibition on it's European premiere in Norrköping. It will never end. Harry Potter is like The Wizard of Oz (published in 1900) or Alice in Wonderland (published in 1865): 100 years from now people will still read Harry Potter and love it, and I'm grateful that I was there from the very beginning and watched it unfold.